Aspects of the disclosure relate to computer hardware. In particular, one or more aspects of the disclosure generally relate to computer hardware for cooling a computer server.
Many organizations and businesses utilize multiple computing devices, such as computer servers and the like, as part of their business. In many cases, the servers may generally be arranged in such a way as to minimize the space and/or area that the servers occupy (e.g., servers may be stacked on racks in a server cabinet). During operation, servers generally produce heat, which may have a negative effect on their performance. Further, because multiple servers are arranged close to one another so as to minimize the amount of space they occupy, there is a corresponding increase in the amount of heat that surrounds each server. In many cases, operation of a computing device may degrade as the temperature of its internal components (e.g., central processing unit, memory devices, communication controllers, etc.) increase. This increase in heat may cause the servers to become unstable.
The demand for servers that are able to perform in an effective and fast manner, while existing in a high power and high heat density server computer environment, has increased. This increased demand results in the need for improved methods for cooling servers. Generally, the performance, size and scalability of a cooling solution are critical aspects when implementing an improved cooling method. In many cases, a cooling air conditioning system is utilized to cool a room in which computing equipment is installed to dissipate the heat generated by the computing equipment. However, many businesses are increasing the number of servers and/or are running their computing equipment at higher clock speeds (e.g., overclocking), thus increasing the need for a more efficient means for cooling the servers. In many cases, the increased heat generated from a greater number of computing devices installed in an organization's server room and/or use of overclocked computer servers may produce enough heat such that the organization may need to upgrade the cooling capacity of the cooling system serving the server room. As such, a need has been recognized for cooling individual servers (e.g., high density servers, overclocked servers, standard servers, etc.) such that heat generated by the individual servers can be managed while minimizing the physical space requirements of the computer servers and associated equipment and staying within the cooling capacity of the server room cooling system.